Zodiac The Musical is a brand-new musical produced by Peet Nieuwenhuijsen, directed by William Spaaij and staged at the Koepelgevangenis – a former prison in Breda, The Netherlands, which provides a spectacular backdrop to this compelling and entertaining piece set in 2031 focussed on a number of human, political and environmental issues.
Lighting Designer, Marc Heinz and Technical Production Manager, Michiel van der Zijde – representing Unlimited Productions with Jeffrey Kranen, Luc Huisman and Assistant Lighting Designer, Jordy Veenstra – designed the set, with the LD specifying 32 Robe T2 Profile fixtures for the project, along with 50 Spiider LED Wash Beams, among other lighting fixtures.
Nieuwenhuijsen required a circular venue for his concept to work, which presented some fundamental challenges for the production team, primarily an unknown weight loading for the domed roof, and for lighting in particular, it brought some unexpected gifts, like the glass brick ‘shower tower’ which became a permanent internally lit set feature and vital part of the narrative.
Special spreader arrangements had to be made to ensure seating tribunes and the four ovular stepped ramps that intersected the space and divided it into quadrants were installed without putting weight on the glass area.
Thirty-eight LED screens dotted around the upper levels are a metaphor for big data recording and crunching, with over 70 drones – provided by Dronisos from France – joining the cast as a reminder that shady, anonymous governmental institutions shrouded in secrecy and subversion are in control. The faceless technicians running these operations were sealed behind closed doors in the shower tower.
With original plans unavailable and no records existing in the municipality, a full 3D laser scan survey of the building was completed – needed for the UV-mapping of the projections was followed by a painstaking rope access examination of the roof construction conducted by the Unlimited Productions team to ascertain the roof weight loading capacities, which were judged to be ‘extremely little’.
The team received the go-ahead to remove around 1000kg of old house lighting and associated steel detritus from the roof which freed up just enough capacity to rig a very small top centre circular truss at the top – which is rigged with the 12 Robe Spiiders.
It was also necessary to remove the old house lighting to get a clear path for seven 20K projectors rigged in seven prison cells on level four, spaced out around the 52.5m roof circumference. Al kit was either ground or side supported.
Head Rigger, Ruud de Deugd produced eight curved leg spider-like ground support structure design to connect to a 15m diameter circular truss in the middle positioned 12m above the central performance. This provided close lighting positions for the main performance space which is 14m in diameter complete with a double revolve stage.
The stage stayed bare aside from a few props throughout the entire performance, putting huge emphasis on the cast and lighting to get the energy ramped up and the strong emotional impact of the piece across.
Front light was another enigma as it needed to be rigged around the cell tiers, and after a test revealed that the fourth floor was the optimum position, Heinz auditioned several moving lights for this part including the Robe T2s, which were still a prototype at this time.
Robe’s distributor Controllux then pulled out all the stops to ensure that lighting supplier Events Light, also close to Breda, received the fixtures in time for the get in – 20 T2s were fixed to the steel beams around the main interior wall, each individually attached to the building by rope access riggers. A rope sits next to each light so it could be lowered for service. The other 12 T2 Profiles were on the top circle of the spider ground support, positioned for closer front lighting.
“The output and colour mixing were perfect,” said Heinz. “Together with the weight (36.9kg).”
The cast are tightly choreographed by Stanley Burleson so elements like CRI and colour mixing are important to bring out the detail in the costumes without overpowering them with light.
Heinz was excited to be using new technology. “There’s always that ground-breaking buzz when using something new, and while there’s a bit of risk as well, Robe is a brand that I know I can also absolutely rely on, so all of this underlined my decision to go with T2,” he said.
22 Spiiders were housed on a ground support structure and along with T2s, a further 16 Spiiders were attached to the balcony around the third level of cells, used for washing the venue’s dome and supporting the projections, with the final 12 on the top circular truss right up on the roof.
All 92 moving lights worked in conjunction with a Follow-Me automated followspot system at the heart of the design, which ensured that all the stage characters were covered.
Lighting was supplied by Events Light, who were among the first in Europe to receive the Robe T2 Profile. Lighting control was achieved by a Road Hog Full Boar console programmed by Jasper Nijholt. Projectors and media servers were programmed by Ruben Boogaard, both lights and video are operated by Pascal Schutijser as a mix of timecode for the large production numbers, but mostly manually operated lighting cues according to visual line-of-sight.
Audio was designed by Jeroen ten Brinke. The video design was by Arjen Klerkx with content created by Anouk Steenbakkers and Joost Gulien.